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Christianity definitely didn't start at 0 AD. If wikipedia serves, started at about 300 AD when Constantine started recognizing the group. There was that a council of scholars (I believe known as The Councils of Nicaea) that decided on what should be put into the compilation we know as the bible then the erection of the first church in 380AD.

Hypathia, the respected but troublesome figure, was murdered around 415AD, 35 years later. The Dark ages starting about a hundred years later (according to Wikipedia), presumably when a more widespread campaign of stamping out a competing vision of the biblical god becomes economically and politically viable. Join us or die ultimatum.

I contend is that there where repeated efforts to suppress or destroy information. Consider Galileo as an obvious example, and he was only put under house arrest because of his nobility. Furthermore, If you consider the most common method to convey information to be in the form of a story, killing people who know and tell stories destroys information.

I will admit, putting aside your interesting contentions for the moment, I may have applied the word you quoted in this historic context irresponsibly, not because I feel it would misrepresent what actually happened, but irresponsibly because of knee jerk reaction conditioning people have to defend their faith from such a challenge. And that is where the actual point gets missed.

Lastly, perhaps we both agree that history is written by the those who are victorious. The conclusions about central authorities with enough clout or central authority in regions being conquered will never paint a negative light on history retold, the requirement of being a truthful historic entry being optional, what is not optional is that their history be aligned to dogma of their allies, other church based political allies for instance.

In our time of government secrets, no credible historian will deviate substantially from official press releases in their interpretation of major events like 9/11 or even the Iraq war even though no threat has actually been issued against the lives of journalists or their families. The tin foil hat crowd is just ignored and make up that "static" portion of the bandwidth. If the message is still too clear, then attack a producer or directors credibility with more static.

In 500 years time, conjectures supposing the official view, for example, Iraq was invaded for oil can become another interpretation of how our energy dependency influenced historians to such conclusions. The declension may been be a part of a further hereto unfolding push to discredit such views.

In many ways, this latest trend of destroying information that doesn't suit the state, or whatever authority behind the state, is old hat, the only thing new these days is that we live in a world with the internet. For the most part, killing someone's image is more effective in killing their message without the martyrdom problem.

It actually started with the burning of the great library of Alexandria and the murder of Hypathia at the start of an era we call the Dark Ages when Christianity was born. Centuries of a murderous, and genocidal campaign was untaken to erase specific information from human knowledge and history.

I find it odd to read an article shared on/. starting with "Imagine a world where the book burners had won."

Could part of the problem be rooted in the nature of how the protagonists were fighting for basic principles challenged or perhaps infringed on by circumstances with real parallels in our society and/or that the fight could be viewed as motive or encouragement to fight these same parallels in our reality?

I'm going out on a limb here.:) I hope only for the comments and particular view you hold in relation or thereabouts.

So if accept that the soul is a measurable discrete entity, and we accept that in lower energy forms it is to be placed in a vessel or body that then becomes it's "home" for the duration of time the vessel can contain it, until death, then clearly the soul is somewhat a localized entity. As a body dies and decomposes, returning its material to the land from which it came, we can easily assimilate an idea that a soul would also return to its source.

On earth, its arguable that the source of almost all life/energy is the sun; it illuminates and heats our world, it is the power behind photosynthesis from which emerges the basic essential and energy of all foods through the food chains. We can call the sun a sort of energy portal where energy and life passes into this realm. Presumably we can even extend this analogy to suppose that souls, as higher level energy patterns, also transit this portal when incarnating a body and possibly would transit back to source when the body/vessel containment aspects collapse at or about the moment of death.

A great deal has been claimed about sacred geometries present in some form in all things, especially living things, on earth. A few artificial things, artifacts, The pyramids of Gaza and the Aztecs have sacred geometries built in them. Personally, I find a sacred geometry of striking coincidence in the sky observing the moon. It has the exact same aspect size and shape as the sun, it only shows one face to earth, a result of another coincidence of having the same rotational period as orbital period, and recently speculation that it may be an artificial satellite of sorts that was put in place sometime between 20K BC and 15K BC raises further speculation about what it really is. One could put forth a claim that there are too many coincidences about its existence for it to be purely natural, and yet, if one where to look into the sky and gaze across the moon, most wouldn't notice it to be out of place.

But the coincidence of being of the same aspect size as the sun is the basis of my question to you being that its aspect size may be related to "antenna" type characteristics of another kind. Can you imagine, if energy could channeled in a similar way to energy that is channelled from the sun, operating with a function similar to a portal, such that this energy would attract a disoriented soul recently liberated from its body that has just died. Perhaps attract such a soul much like a candle attracts a moth. A trap of sorts, that prevents the soul from rejoining with its source on the other side of the natural portal, the sun? As a part of an intergalactic struggle? Have you heard of such a thing elsewhere?

I think our "modern" notions of idealologies that describe a society, Communism and Capitalism, are both riddled with imperfection that manifests as the corruption that has destroyed them both. Corruption in our society is the thing that makes our idealologies imperfect and as a race we are too niave to accept that we are not as smart as we think we are, that our biggest enemy is human nature. That human nature is born harmless and innocent, but we soon grow out of that and I think that the expression "sinner" just means that we are imperfect. It is that imperfection that causes the corruption in our societies.

I hold that the ideas themselves are prefect. They have a necessary level of structure while leaving the rest open for implementation. Corruption enteres as part of that implementation; it's where the perfect idea becomes a tool for the to further channel those personal agendas.

I like your interpretation of sinner, but that too implies that submission to the greater and more perfect is mandated. A sort of, "know your place" and "fall into the pecking order" rationalization

Agree. I think what is at issue is what is the status quo? What is required to make it more fair to normal, everyday people whilst powerful people weild such influence.

Bingo.

I have a certain level of doubt that fair was ever the intention. Americans and Aussis always have taken the liberty to be oppressive in one form or another; Indigenous Native Americans 17 and 18 hundreds, aborigines, people of east temor, the idea that they would somehow take a stand against the oppression of their prole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#Background [ see item III lower class ] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell) is a break from culture and tradition.

The falacy of "We do not negotiate with terrorists" has to be challenged because the reality is it is promoting more terrorism. Unless it is a random act of violence, terrorists have a motivation and I want to know what it is that has made them violent so that maybe we can remove that motivation to commit terroist acts in the first place.

It must be this way, the question is who you define as a terrorist and how you treat those terrorists. On one occasion in the recent past when ultra orthodox Jews committed acts of violence and terror against their neighboring Palestinians, the Palestinians came out and declared those actions that of terrorists and denounced those perpetrators as terrorists. The Israelis' response was simple: "Yes their acts are that of terror, you can say they are terrorists, but we will not treat them as terrorists."

The point of negotiating with terror is an oxymoron in a way. Under fear, nobody rationalizes correctly and that's why that phrase has validity. However if you redefine the terms you have an inflection that only causes a degradation in the quality and level of communications. Perhaps it's for this reason that we hear that phrase so much more these days. The powers that be find it convenient to legitimize their declension of quality communications. They prefer that messages are sent by the exploding of bombs.

I think this is the difference between a Civillian and a Citizen. A Civilian will sit around, watching their sport, and take pot shots a people defending democracy as "political" or "whiners" or some other term. I beleive a Citizen is someone who participates in a democracy, not just by voting, but by writing letters to politicians and trying to change things for everyone in a peaceful way through the legislative process. They are the partners of democracy.

I applaud you initiative!

I will try something like writing to my representatives.

I don't know if I wrote this in my prior posting but Citizen is a title of nobility. ei "Citizen" John Dow or "Sargent" Bill McLearner or "President" (to avoid the filters). Civilian is more a military classification of populations as required for their rules and regs. The prior carries some very very interesting implications. A title of nobility like "Sir" as in "Sir" Lancelot implies that Lancelot has pledged his loyalty and life to the servitude of his ruler, King Arthur in this example. Sargent Brown has pledged his loyalty and life to the military he has enlisted in in a similar way. "Esquire" Shapiro probably knows that his title demands his loyalty and life in allegiance with the Bar that gave him his privileges. That implication of devout servitude also applies to those who knowingly or unknowingly accept a title like Citizen. In light of the understanding that the uneducated don't really understand the ways, their unknowing acceptance is pardoned implicitly since keeping the ranks "in line" and "in order" is more important than a proper education or even a straight forward explanation.

After all the three duties of a Citizen (obey laws, pay taxes, and jury duty) are easy enough to enforce with fines and jail time. But the bigger issue that really begs a question is: Who do we serve?

My view is you can't meet imperfection with any form of perfection. Since human beings are imperfect, no perfect system can be expected to work. That being said, the justice system can't be perfect because it exists to resolve disputes between imperfect people.

There are a few examples of "perfect" systems that fail miserably, communism is idealistically perfect and yet the now defunct Soviet Union's implementation was riddled with corruption and inequity. Native american Indians lived in a very harmonious society, along came the europeans and took up a plan to wipe them out. Human beings are born completely vulnerable, harmless and innocent but the christian church has declared that everyone is born a sinner.

The reason justice is sometimes misunderstood is because we equate justice to fairness or equality. The hard truth is that justice is simply the maintenance of a status quo. In areas where that status quo is not understood, justice in that area is also not likely to be understood. If some force has caused the status quo be altered than the justice system is there to examine whether the forces involved are lawful or not and what "punishment" or reparations are required to re-establish that status quo.

With more laws being passed with secret or classified clauses we can be sure the status quo is changing into something that is less equal, less fair and more fascist. But how those changes will effect lives of Americans is still too subjective an issue to say anything definitive except that we continue to depend on the good judgement of our public servants and citizenry to take those issues and smooth them over by continuing to work for the good of the people.

Personally, I can't share any sympathy for either of the two brothers; their methods have caused more damage to the cause for freedom and the persistance of those values in the Bill of Rights than they can imagine. Their actions make everyone think that a war on terror is a good idea. Besides that, they have left only suffering and grief in their wake and their legacy will stand as that of a public villan.

There is a way to restore freedom. But it isn't easy and most everyone needs to want such a restoration and be willing to pay a price. People need to see the value in seeking more perfection in themselves before that perfection can have an effect on the freedom issue.

Plus, words that where defined one way have gradually had their official definition altered over the years... Try looking at how definitions of certain words have changed from Blacks Law 3rd edition to the 7th edition.

You want control of the law? You need only rewrite the dictionary. adverb-verb fictions are your friend.

This gradual and constant inflection leads to the declensions of the self-evident in all areas, not just how government interpretes the authority granted to it. These change of the presumptions and interpretations occur in a way that only invades that which is self-evident.

The fact is most of what happens in court is based on presumptions that are only known by a few. Another example of segregation through information.

The trick works because these changes are done over a 200 hundred years so that any one generation just labels it as "the changing of the times" whereas the actuality can be much more sinister. And all this is done in the name of progress.

I agree with your points about the law needing to be respectable and your surrounding viewpoints.

Nothing wrong with rants on/. that's why it's here, although a word of caution. I wouldn't want to incite social disorder on a monitored online forum.

If a rev0lut!on of some sort is to happen, there needs to be a definite plan with a long term strategy. If your strategy is not sound, you risk committing your "fast adopter" contempt group into positions that will compromise those resources for no definite gain.

The best way to throw the bums out of office is to vote them out, but to do that, you need to put forth a champion who can withstand the election process and remain faithful to the true values of your movement.

The idea of a popular uprising needs to be done in a way that does not justify the use of armed forces to prevent social disruption. Regardless of any Weapons Ban Act or the such, the police and government are much much better suited to handle a fighting confrontation than a political one. They have all the guns and military leadership they need to take on entire countries. Throwing stones will just get you sent to the brig where you can contemplate whether the pain of getting shot in the shoulder or hip was worth it.

If you need proof: the Israelis successfully have managed to keep the Palestinians under control for more that 200 years through their various uprisings, and not because the Palestinians where not willing to give their lives for what they believed or because they are not organized, but because their strategy is to confront their opposition where they are strongest. Their strategy is to appeal to international sympathy. It does not work. Nobody is sympathetic to the trouble-makers.

People need to get organized in a political and economic way. The population need to channel their desire for change into an organization or organizations that can displace both political parties without succumbing to the temptations of corruption.

The people need to overcome the media induced fear, the propaganda on TV, and start to listen to a community leader who will obviously need to coordinate his/her community with the organizational goals. Because the issues are so polarizing, it should be quite a bit easier to put something together than if things where more moderate. But it still remains a monumental feat.